


The Empty Threats of Little Lord

by muxing



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Hurt but no comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26643259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muxing/pseuds/muxing
Summary: The bloodletting beneath the Imperial Palace doesn’t stop. A young Hubert picks up the pieces.
Kudos: 7





	The Empty Threats of Little Lord

> If only there existed a justice large enough to encompass everything that House Hresvelg had suffered. 

* * *

Click, clack. A masked mage pushes a wooden table-cart along one of the narrow side-corridors of the Imperial Palace. The wooden wheels rattle against their axles as he crosses the ancient stones. Older than the Empire itself, but not older than the bloodletting rituals that recently started beneath the floors. Every other month, the man had used this passageway to avoid the nervous gaze of the palace servants. Well, most of the servants.

Hubert had been tailing the mage for some time, but he chose to wait before making his presence known. What he wants to say: may the maggots feast on his brains, once Hubert is done with him. What he says instead: 

“Excuse me, my lord.” The greeting slips easily from Hubert’s lips, betraying little of his disdain. His true masters required very little of him. Next to the sacrifices that the Emperor had made, he has no right to his bubbling anger. “This is a menial task. I would be glad to complete it in your stead.”

He has never been diplomatic, especially not for the carnage that these men had wrought. He cannot greet these monsters with a genuine smile. He does know how to be helpful, and he can only hope that subservience is enough.

“So be it.” Even beneath a mask, the relief in his voice is apparent. “If it had been my decision, then we would have disposed of these bones along with the feces.” Blood thumps heavily in Hubert’s ears. The words are meant to get a rise out of him, but they were also the truth. These shadowy villains would have, and he must not let them. 

“My lord, it will be done.” He bows stiffly and without honor. Satisfied, the mage warps away to some hidey-hole. Hubert straightens himself and scowls at the space where the man had stood. He takes the handles of the cart and begins pushing towards the palace exit.

He can’t look away from the body on the cart. He can’t see the face underneath the plain white sheet, but he can guess from the broad shoulders and approximate height. His cousin used to stand on her toes when she would tie his cravat. 

Leonard von Hresvelg did not deserve knives and magical burns in life, but he deserved flowers and a resting place in death. No service could soften his father’s betrayal, and nobody could help the prince now. This is not the service that his father spoke of all those years ago, selfless and sacrificial. Now that Lady Edelgard is beyond his reach, burying her brother’s bones is the only penance that Hubert can have.

And still, it is not enough. His hands grip tighter against the handle of the table cart. If not for the occupant that he is transporting, Hubert might have rammed the cart against a wall out of frustration. If only he had anticipated his father’s intentions to betray the Emperor. If only he could skewer every last one of the face-stealers without more of their people showing up with cold vengeance in their hearts. If only there existed a justice large enough to encompass everything that House Hresvelg had suffered. 

Hubert is fourteen years old, and he no longer believes that the goddess could deliver such a justice.

He arrives at the mortuary right as the sun dips over the mountains. The mortician curtsies for the Honorable Lord Vestra, who nods without a shred of honor. The two conspirators transfer the body from the cart to a proper table. Miss Helga had worked as a mortician for most of her fifty-something years of life. She had cleaned up after the most gruesome horseback accidents and waterlogged sailors. She twisted limbs back into their natural positions and sewed together the most ghastly gashes.

Little could prepare her for the sight underneath the white sheet. The prince’s chest was scarred with several layers of magical burns. The incisions in his stomach were made far more methodically. She did not need to scoop the eyes out, as the eyelids were already sunken in place. She inhales sharply. “Is this--?”

“It is.” No embellishment. No comfort. No absolution. Their prince lay dissected like a frog, and Hubert cannot lessen this horror. He does not want to. He wants as many people to know about the cruelties underneath the palace as possible. He wants Enbarr to bear the constant grief as he does. But he must place House Hresvelg’s interests above his own desires. 

Instead, he tells her: “Keep quiet about Lord Leonard, and you will be well-rewarded.”

“Yes, of course.” She nods stiffly, but the tears don’t stop. “ I am so sorry, my lord.” Clearly, this is not how she wanted to see the beloved prince. This is not how anyone wants to gaze upon their future sovereign: as exsanguinated flesh and dried blood and broken bones, rather than the cumulation of their ideals. “It is an honor to serve his highness, I only wish it were in better circumstances.”

Don’t they all. He doesn’t say it aloud, lest his voice shakes. 

Hubert takes out a white silk handkerchief, hand-embroidered with gold thread. His father had gifted it to him when he had first entered Lady Edelgard’s service. Though they were servants, he wanted his son to have a sense of pride in serving House Hresvelg. These days, Marquis Vestra is of a very different mind. 

Hubert lays the white cloth carefully on the late Lord Leonard’s face, just enough to obscure his identity. The mages’ crimes deserve to be raised into the harshness of the sun, but he needs the mortician’s hands to be steady.

“This is your duty to the Empire.” The words aren’t as motivating for her as they are for him. Miss Helga seems flustered to be reprimanded by a stern fourteen year old. As most adults are. Hubert bows low to the mortician, the way he never bowed for the men in the pointed masks. “Please.” The word trembles. Hubert does not raise his head until the mortician moves past him to do her duty.

Hubert waits outside of the mortuary. He wonders if Lord Leonard’s pained expression would freeze on his face, if Hubert had dipped his handkerchief in the embalming fluid beforehand. It seemed like a more respectful send-off than pretending that none of these horrors had occurred to him at all. In a few more hours, Helga would have him all dressed up for the burial. She would restore his wounds, too little and too late. She would have him in exquisite finery, and his face would be caked in considerable amounts of cosmetic powder. The corpse will betray none of Leonard’s last horrors.

If he slipped a handkerchief of formaldehyde over the true faces of the masked mages, would Lord Leonard rest peacefully?

He has to believe that Emperor Ionius had made the correct decision. He could accept limited autonomy, or he could risk being replaced by the face-stealers. He has more imperial citizens to protect than his own children. Such is the duty of the Adrestian Emperor. But if the face underneath his handkerchief had been Lady Edelgard’s, then Hubert would… he would… 

(He would have been inadequate.)

He looks up when Helga returns his handkerchief to him, along with the most reassuring smile that she can offer to a fourteen-year-old. “You did very well, Hubert.”

He freezes. He had personally negotiated for this mortician, but he never told her his name. Her smile drops as she realizes her mistake. Hubert reaches for the knife on his belt, but the woman is faster. He falls backwards as he is struck by a chilled blast of dark magic. He is instantly sapped of his strength. 

By the time Hubert lifts himself from the floor, he finds himself pressed against the wall by a bony hand and several ghastly appendages. The woman laughs harshly as her disguise melts from her real face. “You didn’t think that we would let our greatest asset go to waste, did you?”

“You will not speak of His Imperial Highness in this manner!” He snarls and struggles against her grip. She holds him firmly by the collar until he leans forward and bites her hand. The mage hisses as she throws him against the stone wall of the mortuary. Hubert gasps at the pain. 

“How did you like my little performance?” The woman grins widely, as if Hubert was in on the joke. “I can’t believe you were stupid enough to comfort me. Should I tell you the final words of the little prince as he squealed for mercy?” She kicks Hubert in the ribs for his misplaced kindness. The handkerchief lies on the floor beside him.

He can feel the stinging of his traitor tears, but he will not allow himself -- not in front of his enemy. Not after everything that the princes and princesses had endured. There will be no more tears for the most wicked.

“That’s quite enough, Kronya.”

His eyes are too watery to see, but he knows that voice. How many times has Hubert heard it in the main hall? How many times has it given him orders? Hubert is grateful, but he does not know why Lord Arundel has returned from Faerghus. 

“There’s been a change of plans.”

What? Lord Arundel’s tone is sickeningly cordial. There’s something off about the exchange.

“We have more work for you to do. I’ll bring her from the carriage.” 

Her? The Emperor has no more children for Kronya to butcher. No more children, except-- No. Not her.

As the last loyal servant of House Hresvelg, he cannot allow this to pass. He will grovel if he must. Exhausted and bruised, Hubert presses his head against the cold stone.

“Don’t do this, Lord Arundel.” There is no place for pride or anger or pain. He must save the princess in the carriage, at any cost. “If you have any love for your niece, I beg you to take her highness away from the palace. Please.” 

Kronya brings her heel down and smashes his face against the ground. He feels blood running out his nostrils before he can register the pain. Worse, he can hear the clack of Arundel’s boots across the paved stone. Kronya cackles as she grabs a fistful of his hair, raising his head from the ground.

“Aww, does the widdle boy need a hankie?” She presses the white silk against his bloody nose, smearing the red all over his face. “Ohhh, right. You’re usually doing this for the royal brats, aren’t you?”

In the future, he will have many lies for Lady Edelgard. Some would be serious, and others would not even be worth thinking about. One day, he will tell her that the day she was taken to Faerghus was the worst day of his life. In truth, it was only a close second. 

“Lord Arundel!”

Very, very close.

* * *

The summer cicadas hum their incessant song. Hubert tries his best to ignore them as he surveys the bridge to the cathedral.

Light footsteps approach him. He supposes that the Professor is trying to be subtle, lest he "sprout wings and fly away like a giant bat" (Bernadetta's words, not his).

"Is this yours, Hubert?" He smells the formaldehyde before he sees the tell-tale Crest of Seiros embroidered in the corner of the handkerchief. His lips thin into a smile as he accepts the item graciously. He has many tools for his dark deeds, but there was a certain poetry in executing Lady Edelgard’s justice with this one. 

"Thank you, Professor. Where did you manage to find it?"

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Offscreen minor character death, canon-typical implications of offscreen torture, canon-typical violence against a minor
> 
> Written for a “Lost Items” zine. This fic is specifically about Hubert’s noxious handkerchief.


End file.
